Page 64 of Sinful Promises
Mother was the master of manipulation, and if I wasn’t careful, she’d take the conversation in a direction that would be the opposite to the one I wanted. Inhaling a shaky breath, I formulated the next question in my mind, determined to make the first move as soon as we were alone again.
Well, as alone as we could be with two dying women sharing the room with us.
Neither of us spoke while the tea lady offered refreshments to the two other patients. Their answers were in croaky whispers that were impossible to decipher, but at least it confirmed they were still alive and healthy enough to eat something. Once again, I wondered if they were listening to us, but at the same time I didn’t really care. Mother’s answers were more important than our privacy.
The second the tinkling tray disappeared out the door, I leaned forward and collected the photo. “What happened next, Mom?”
“I got a beating.” She aimed a fierce gaze at me. “Mom and Dad blamed me for Lily’s death.”
“But you were a child. You shouldn’t have been in charge of her in the first place.”
She shrugged. “It was just how it was. Nothing was ever the same again.” Her words wobbled. “Not a week went by where they didn’t remind me of what I’d done. Dad hated me.”
“What about your mother?”
Her fingers trembled as she picked up the picture. “Mother barely spoke after that. She went into her shell and never came out.”
“I can’t imagine—” I shook my head. There were no words that would provide sufficient comfort.
“Mom filled the dam with lily pads and built a shrine overlooking it. She spent most of her days sitting there. I couldn’t stand it. Everywhere I looked I saw Lily. One minute she’d be my happy smiling baby sister—next minute I’d see the tiny, muddy body with the blue lips they’d pulled from the water.”
“Oh, Mom. How awful.”
“Dad’s beatings became a regular occurrence. He’d hit me for any stupid reason. If I spilled the salt. If I sneezed at the breakfast table. If I had a hole in my sock. Mom would always walk away. She despised me.” She huffed a wobbly breath. “I was fourteen when I ran away for the first time.”
It was like the floodgates had been opened, and not wanting to burst that bubble, I didn’t speak. I reached for her hand instead, hoping it would give her the courage to keep talking.
“I was only gone one night when they found me at the mall. Dad beat me with a wooden spoon for that one.”
I squeezed her hand and shook my head. I’d had a tragic childhood, but at least I was never beaten.
“Next time I ran away, I was fifteen. The police found me three days later and dragged me home. My punishment was a whipping with dad’s belt. I couldn’t sit for a week.” She closed her eyes, and running her hand up her thigh, she said, “I had bruises all up my legs.”
Mom picked up the photo and tears flooded her eyes.
I’d fought so hard to hate Mother that I never once stopped to think what she’d been through. I’d always thought she was happy, gleeful, but she wasn’t. She was hurting in unimaginable ways.
Mother lowered the photo. “The next time I planned to run away, I was going to make sure it was for good. I packed a bag.” She huffed. “I had stupid stuff really—a few clothes, my Walkman and a heap of music tapes. And this photo.”
I’d seen that Walkman and some tapes in that top drawer. I made a mental note to bring them to her.
“I was standing at the fridge with my backpack on, deciding whether or not to take the apples that were in there, when Dad found me.”
My hand shot to my chest. “Oh no. What did he do?”
Staring at the photo, she said, “He strode to his wallet and pulled out all the cash he had and shoved the money into my backpack. Then he dragged me to the door and told me to leave. He said if I walked out, I would never be welcome back.”
“Did you go?”
“It wasn’t a hard decision, Daisy. Of course I left.”
“But you were fifteen. Where did you go?”
She shrugged. “Anywhere. Everywhere.”
“But what about aunties? Uncles? Didn’t you have grandparents you could go to?”
“Probably. But they all blamed me for Lily’s death. Everyone hated me.”